Thirteen months ago I threw myself onto a waiting list for the deluxe 512 GB version of the Steam Deck and put a deposit down with Valve in the hopes I'd one day see the device, something which seemed remote in the face of semiconductor and chip shortages world-wide. Now here we are in August and its arrived!
I'll start off first with saying that the Steam Deck, which I at first characterized as "a dad-dude's gadget toy" is probably not just that, given both my son and my wife are now on waiting lists having seen mine. My wife is keenly aware you can side-load Blizzard's games somehow, and my son just wants to show me how much better he is at all steam games, all the time, than his old dad is.
So in other words....its a cool gadget toy for all gamers, not just dad dude gamers.
Steam Deck is, at its core, more complex than the Switch, though. Unlike Nintendo's handheld wonder, Steam Deck is a real PC functioning in a Linux-based environment, and can come with all the associated perks and headaches of a PC, though not Windows, amazingly--the Linux based OS works exactly as well and non-invasively as it needs to. The Steam store does a good job of navigating which games are optimized or ideal for Steam Deck play, which ones are known to work (but have issues of various sorts), which are untested and which definitely do not work. Of my collection (which is about 1135 games strong) about 158 fall in the optimized category, around 450 are optimized or work with some caveats, and a total of an additional 460 or so are in the "under review, player beware" category. So not too bad.
I loaded a variety of games, including many I had not touched in some years, to see how it handled games over multiple generations. I also loaded a few of the yellow "works with issues" games and a few "not yet supported" games. Of all the latter I quickly learned that they are absolutely true to that category, and have since deleted them. Of the "works with issues" it depends on the game....Forza Horizon 5 for example loads and plays just fine, the warning is simply because you need to bring up a virtual keyboard to log in to your microsoft account before you can play.
Anyway, so far I have been suitably impressed at how well the Steam Deck handles most of the games I have played. My top six gaming choices on the Steam Deck currently are:
Aliens: Fire Team Elite - the team-based mission style gameplay of this game translates really well into the handheld, and the Steam Deck controls feel extremely natural for both FPS and third-person shooters. It is rated "green" for optimal on the Steam Deck.
Prodeus - This doomlike is one of the few games in early access I play and love, and its frenetic gunplay and tribute to old school "boomer shooters" does not wear thin; the elaborate pixel-based enemies mixed with legitimately faux-elaborate backgrounds manage to make the game look vaguely retro while feeling very modern. I like this game more than the new Doom titles. Honestly, I was shocked it played so well on the Steam Deck, and it is rated "yellow" for some reason I have not yet figured out.
Control - This semi-sequel to Alan Wake takes place in the same universe, focusing on a female protagonist descending into the maddening depths of the HQ of the organization called Control. My son, who is an SCP junkie, just recently caught on that this game's subject matter is in close alignment. Aside from the fact that the game initially had the wrong resolution (quickly fixed), and has some occasional audio stumbling following cutscenes, it is very smooth and fun to play on the Steam Deck. This one is also rated green.
Dungeons & Dragons Dark Alliance - this action RPG featuring Drizz't Do'Urden got blasted for some reason when it came out in 2020, but the game is really quite fun and I enjoy its pick up and play elements, ploughing through missions in the Icewind Dale region of the Forgotten Realms. It's a perfect experience on the Steam Deck, rated green.
Blasphemous - this side-scrolling Metroidvania style game focuses on a nice hand-drawn look and focuses on a strange, grim tale of penitence in some sort of medieval nightmare world. It's more noticeably playable (imo) than it is on Switch, as it seems to run very smoothly on the Steam Deck. This is a tough game, mind you, a side-scrolling soulslike experience in some ways, so keep that in mind....bosses are maddening to deal with. Also rated green!
Call of Duty Infinite Warfare - I played the original campaign when this came out on PS4 years ago, then got it on sale on Steam for my son to have fun, but the mere fact that this was green rated for the Steam Deck compelled me to load it. I am enjoying replaying the campaign, and setting up private multiplayer matches with bots (though there does seem to be fully live functionality and maybe even people still playing it!) The only issue I experienced was in the initial load...I think it took almost 30 minutes for the vulkan shaders to cache. After that, it load and plays quickly.
I've had trouble with a few games so far. Batman: Arkham City eventually worked fine, but only after I went to the Steam forums to discover it wasn't starting in the correct screen mode, and that needed to be changed before starting it. A rhythm-racing game with dark style called Distance is allegedly green rated but I couldn't get the control scheme to work. Sirenhead the Awakening was utterly disinterested in playing nice with the Steam Deck control scheme. I did get Singularity, one of my favorite old FPS titles from the Xbox 360 era, to work "fine" but the entire control scheme felt off. For Singularity its a case of YMMV, maybe someone will find it feels comfortable to play, but for me I am used to how Singularity works on a desktop screen and Xbox controller, and the mix of controls and gyroscopic aiming feels very off to me.
One last item of note: the Switch often feels too small to many people, and honestly that makes sense, it's general audience aims younger even if the range of support crosses all ages. I rely on Satisfye grips to make the Switch easier to play in handheld mode, or dock it and use a pro controller. With the Steam Deck, its built-in controls feel exactly right, super comfortable.
Overall...a purchase well worth it. In one day my poor Switch went from "default portable gaming device" to "that thing I get to play Bayonetta games and Astral Chain on." Well...luckily for Switch it has plenty of other exclusives to the console, but literally anything that you can play on either the Switch or the Steam Deck will, by default, leave you wanting that experience on the Steam Deck, I suspect.
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